Five Year Mission
by CBBitter
Summary: Something has awoken on Archanis IV. Is it the start of a war or the end of an era?
1. He

He awoke.

It didn't seem that He'd been asleep for very long, but how could he know? He wasn't supposed to sleep, so something had gone wrong. He checked his remote sensors. Nothing. There were no remote sensors. He tried the visual. There was a crater where the sensing nexus was supposed to be. It was not a new crater. Erosion had smoothed its edge and leveled its bottom. How long had He been asleep? What had happened?

He surveyed his systems. Power systems: functioning. Energy sinks: intact, but non-functional. Weapons: functional, but off. Memory banks: intact and operating. He could aim them manually. Speaking of memory banks, there were buffers from damaged systems. They might have data. There had been an attack. Why had there been an attack? Not just an attack, there had been a war. Was there still a war? The remote sensors were down, but He still had near-space sensors.

Something was approaching, a vessel of a design He did not recognize. It had three long cylinders and a saucer, all connected by struts. This must be the latest attack. The energy sinks were gone. He had to immobilize it. Targeting sensors still functioned. Weapons still chargeable. Charging them took just a few minutes.

He fired.


	2. USS Constitution

_Captain's Log. Stardate: 7420.6. We've been ordered to investigate an unusual energy spike picked up by an Androian long range probe on Archanis IV. Given its proximity to Klingon space I've put the ship on yellow alert. Even after four years, the Organian peace still feels fragile._

"I don't like this, Aziz."

Captain Alsudari perched on the bridge's rail. Opposite, Aziz's oldest friend, security chief and tactical officer Lieutenant Commander Cutter sat with his back to the tactical console. At the science station, his XO, Commander Harrison, sat, hands folded in her lap, quiet as ever. And ever the outsider in spite of being second in command. She watched him politely, attentively. Alsudari felt guilty for not including her. Again. He slid Down the rail until he was halfway between Cutter and Harrison.

"I hate it when you do that," he said to Harrison. A suppressed smirk tightened the corners of Harrison's mouth.

"I don't like it either, the Andorian sensor readings, that is," she said. "An energy spike this close to Klingon space makes me nervous."

"Neither of you think this could be something non-Klingon?"

Cutter shrugged. Harrison answered. "It seems unlikely, Captain. The Klingon's have been warp-capable far longer than Humans. They're believed to have explored every rock in this sector. If there were unknown technology on Archanis IV, they would surely have stirred it up by now. It has to be something the Klingons are doing."

"And they're doing it in the neutral zone."

"Are we going in hot, Sir?"

Alsudari and Cutter looked at each other and both knew the other was thinking, are you kidding me?

"Something a little stealthier is called for. Harrison, I want tactical probes on standby. Passive sensors only, for now. And run tactical drills with the weapons crews. Use those new protocols Jim Kirk's been recommending."

"Aye, Captain."

"Helm, put us in a stellar orbit just past the fifth planet. Keep us exactly in line with Archanis IV."

Three hours later the U.S.S. Constitution orbited the Archanis star exactly 30 million kilometers from Archanis IV. As soon as they were out of warp, Alsudari spun his chair toward his XO. Her back was to him as she bent over the scanner's cowl.

"Anything?"

"Sir, sensors show nothing down there."

"What do you mean there's nothing down there?"

"Just exactly what I said, Captain. There are no ships or artificial structures of any kind in orbit. There are no technological energy sources on the surface. The only thing down there are the ruins noted by previous surveys."

Alsudari sighed and turned back toward the console. They would need to move closer. "Helm, put us in a transfer orbit. Get us ten million miles closer."

Several hours passed and the sensor's still showed nothing. "Mr. Ch'Sulek." The Andorian looked up from the communications console. "Hailing frequencies open."

"Aye, Sir."

"This is Captain Aziz Alsudari of the Federation Starship Constitution to anyone listening on this channel. We mean you…"

"Captain!" It was the navigator. On the main viewer there was a flash on the planet's surface.

"Shields up. Red alert."

The blast hit. Alsudari must have blacked out. He had been in ships thrown around before, but opening his eyes to the underside of the engineering panel was a surprise. He wondered idly whether he had gone under the rail or over it. He sat up and found the rest of the bridge crew in similar circumstances. The navigator lay on top the helmsman, against the edge of the command pit. Ch'Sulek was slumped against the turbolift doors, unconscious, his left antenna missing. Harrison, at his feet, was just waking up. Cutter sprawled next to the command chair.

Harrison was standing before Alsudari even finished taking in the bridge. He regretted how often he and Cutter had inadvertently excluded her from things. She would have her own ship someday with or without his help. Before he could even get to his feet she was at the helm raising the scanner and checking the orbit. And yelling. "Phaser crews, are you awake?"

Alsudari ran for the nav console. It was simplest of all possible actions. Harrison was still yelling for the phaser crews.

"Forget the phasers, Joanne. The shields are gone. Anything that can do that in one strike can take us out in a second. Let's get out of here. Laying in a course for Starbase 11. Get ready to punch it."

"Captain." Cutter was awake.

Aziz turned around. "Tim, are you hurt?" He didn't answer. Instead he pointed at the main viewer. Aziz turned to see what he was pointing at.

And the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

The front of the ship was no longer pointed at Archanis IV. Floating across the screen, moving right to left, were the ship's warp nacelles with about a third of their struts still attached.

"Joanne, can the sensors tell us who hit us?"

She looked into the scanner. "That blast had an unknown energy signature."

"Who does it most resemble?"

"The Klingons, Sir."


	3. IKS Klothos

"Kaas."

Kor's head swam. As he stood above the empty wine well. He tipped his head and neck as far as they would go, sucking down the last drops of bloodwine from his cup.

"Kaas!"

Somewhere across the mess hall, through the throng of Kor's senior staff, he could see his XO's mouth moving to the tune of a war chant and his head listing from too much bloodwine.

"KAAS!"

Kali, slumped at a nearby table, her head lolling on her folded arms, jerked suddenly upward. "Right away, sir."

Kor laughed. "I didn't give you an order, Lieutenant."

"Well, I'm always prepared not to follow orders, Sir."

"That's why you are an excellent officer, Lieutenant."

The two giggled uncontrollably for several minutes. Then Kor remembered. He turned back toward the empty wine well, ready to yell for his XO again, and nearly bumped into the man. He could not tell whether it was he or Kaas who swayed, but he had to look over Kaas's shoulder at the far wall to keep from throwing up.

"Commander, we seem to be out of bloodwine."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm asking you to refill the well."

"Aye, sir. I wish I could."

"Are you telling me, we have no more bloodwine anywhere on the ship?"

"That is correct, sir."

"We have been in space too long, my friend."

"That is an understatement, Kor."

"Aye."

Kor put his foot on the nearest chair and pushed up as if to mount it. Half-way up, he thought better of operation and settled back to the floor. Instead, he raised his empty cup over his head. "Friends."

The assembled warriors silenced almost immediately.

"My fellow warriors. My honored crew. We are barely halfway through Kot'baval and we have a problem to vex even Kahless himself. We are out of bloodwine."

The mess hall filled with boos and the banging of mugs on tables. When the noise had gone on long enough, Kor continued. "There is..." He let the crew quiet. "There is a solution. I have in my personal larder cases of both chech'tluth and Saurian Brandy."

Immediately, the assembled Klingons were chanting,"Brandy. Brandy. Brandy!" Kor looked at Kaas and shrugged. "Kaas, Send for the Brandy and bring me a bottle of chech'tluth." Kor had been sure the crew would have chosen the chech'tluth. He never could account for the younger generation.

Kor awoke in his own bunk with no inkling of how he had gotten there or how long he'd been out. It was not the first time, so Kor was not surprised. What did surprise him was the sight of a pair of his own underwear pulled upside down over the back of a chair, his command sash hanging cross-wise as though the underwear were wearing the sash.

He barely had time to contemplate the sight when his cabin door chimed. Kor sat up abruptly and swung his feet to the floor—and almost collapsed from the spike of pain to his head.

"Come."

When he looked up, Kali was standing at attention just inside the door.

"Good morning, sir."

"How can you possibly be awake, much less dressed?"

"It' my duty, sir."

Kor shook his head. That was the only answer he would get from her.

"Ship's status, Lieutenant?"

"On your terminal, sir." Her lips opened just a hair then closed again.

"There's something else, Lieutenant?"

"Aye, sir. I think you'll find the reports from our listening posts more interesting, the reports from the Archanis system, specifically."

Kor crossed to his table and called up the report from a listening post near Archanis. He scrolled past the station log and stopped at the sensor graph. Then he smiled. He wasn't a scientist, but he knew the curves of starfleet warp and impulse signatures. He could tell when several of them were converging on the same location. He drummed the table top with the palms of his hands and laughed. He popped the intercom button with the bottom of his fist.

"Kaas. Forget the morning inspection. I need you on the bridge, now."


	4. Deep Space K-5

"Will it hurt?" The girl's eyes widened when she saw the size of the hypospray. Dr. McCoy smiled at her. The girl looked immediately calmer, her freckles fading as the blood returned to her face.

"Not a bit. Is this your first injection?"

"No."

"Well, I heard you're a brave girl."

The girl blushed. "Well, yeah."

"So what's the problem?"

She pointed at the hypo. "The other one was smaller."

"But you're brave, and as I said, it won't hurt a bit." He smiled again and the girl smiled back. Leonard wondered for the 1000th time that week why had hadn't been a pediatrician instead of a ship's doctor.

He pressed the end of the hypo to the girl's arm. There was a short hiss and it was done. "See. Easier than brushing your teeth." He patted her arm where he had injected her and pointed toward the door and a large lidless bucket sitting on the floor next to it. That was when he noticed Jim leaning against the wall.

"You can have one piece on your way out." The girl had seen the bucket of candy on her way in. Now her eyes lit up.

"What do you say," said her mother, who had received her own injection less than a minute earlier.

"Thank you, Doctor."

"It is my pleasure, Miss."

The mother and daughter moved off. The officer who had been behind her her moved up, his duty tunic already removed and the sleeve of his undershirt rolled up to expose his arm.

"If you can excuse me one moment, ensign." McCoy set down the hypospray and walked toward Kirk. The ensign stiffened at the sight of the captain though his tunic bore a K-5 mission patch.

"How's it going?"

McCoy shrugged. "About as expected, but there is a looming problem."

"Oh?"

"There is a contingent of this station that feels this vaccination is some kind of conspiracy."

"If there's anything I can do?"

"Can you go back in time a generation and improve the educational system in the outer colonies?"

Kirk frowned. McCoy didn't need to explain the seriousness of their circumstances. Several thousand had already died of Hovind plague in the Archanis sector.

McCoy continued. "I've already spoken to Commodore Gaavrin. This station may be full of civilians , but it's under starfleet jurisdiction. He's prepared to issue an order. Civilians must take the inoculation or leave the station. A ten percent mortality rate is nothing to laugh at."

"Well, we have another problem." Kirk looked around. "Is there some place private?"

McCoy motioned Kirk with two fingers then lead him to an adjacent room. Kirk spoke as soon as the door closed.

"How much longer do you need?"

"We haven't even inoculated half the half the station. I need three days assuming everyone shows up on time." Kirk sighed. "I know that look. What's the problem?"

"A few days ago we lost contact with the Constitution in the Archanis system. We've also last contact with two other ships sent to investigate. We have reason to believe it's the Klingons."

McCoy pursed his lips. "Well, the Organian peace was good while it lasted."

"We'll find time to lift a glass to it ... later. In the meantime…"

"In the meantime, we'll work round the clock and I'll call the rest of the medical staff over from the Enterprise. I think we can finish in about eighteen hours.

The next shoe dropped two hours later almost to the minute. McCoy reached for another vaccine vial, but his hand came up empty. He looked around for Chapel. Not finding her he glanced down at the next table.

"M'Benga, do you have anything left."

The doctor shook his head. "I sent Christine for more quite a while ago."

"Where the hell is she?"

"You got me. I'll go check on it."

"No. I've got it."

McCoy stormed out the door and down the hall. _Next time I inoculate a space station_ , he thought, _I'm insisting on setting up in the infirmary, not some damn conference room_. Halfway to the storage room he passed Chapel rushing the other direction.

"Christine!"

"Leonard, I was just coming to find you."

"What's wrong?"

Without saying a word, Chapel turned 180 degrees and motioned McCoy to follow.

"Nurse, What's this about?"

"Doctor, I…" Instead of finishing she quickened her pace. Soon they turned a corner and entered a storage area, the storage area where three days earlier, two Starfleet security officers under McCoy's supervision had stashed enough vaccine to inoculate the entire population of K-5 plus the crews of three or four orbiting ships. In the far corner, refrigeration unit ten stood open. It wasn't until he looked in that his knees went weak.

The refrigerator was empty.


	5. Deep Space K-5, Gaavrin's Office

Kirk, sitting cross-legged, tapped his knee cap with the tips of his fingers. Spock felt sure that neither Commodore Gaavrin, in whose office they now sat, nor the officers on the video conference screen—Commodore Wesley, Captain Sanexa and their first officers—knew Kirk well enough to recognize the tapping for impatience, if they even noticed it. Spock could almost feel Jim's impatience, his desire to fly toward the Klingon border at warp 8. Paradoxically, his friend's agitation somehow made it easier for Spock to find calm, to find logic. That reaction was also, paradoxically, Human.

"Any word on the missing vaccines?" It was Commodore Wesley.

"We're still looking," said Gaavrin.

No one bothered to ask about destroying the vaccines or pushing them out an airlock. Starfleet, not to mention station procedures made that unlikely. Access and use of both reclamation systems and airlocks were automatically logged.

"Why not scan the whole station?" The speaker was Sanexa's first officer.

"Federation Bureaucracy hasn't caught up to my appointment here. This is still listed as a civilian facility. I've put in for a writ of exemption, but the nearest commissioner is two hours away by subspace radio and in closed-door meetings with the Fesarians."

"Welcome to the edge of civilization, ladies and gentlemen," said Wesley. "I hope we won't need you, Jim, but I'd rather have you out here with us than not."

"And I need my medical staff," by which Kirk meant he couldn't leave the station without McCoy and his direct reports.

"What about this McCarthy?" McCarthy was the most outspoken proponent of the so called _tracker conspiracy_ , the belief that tracking devices were being implanted in station inhabitants instead of vaccines given.

Gaarvin answered. "He was in the station brig at the time the storage locker was broken into."

"Why…?" Wesley shook his head "I don't need to know. Kirk, I assume you're assisting with the search."

"Every spare crew member, sir."

"All right, let's get to the business at hand. Commander Spock."

"Thank you, Commodore. I've collated information from various Federation probes and listening posts in the Archanis sector. As you all know, a weapon of some kind, believed, but not confirmed to be Klingon, disabled the U.S.S Constitution. Within the hour, we had lost contact with the Constitution."

"Was it destroyed?" asked Captain Sanexa.

"We do not believe so. At the time of the last Starfleet contact with the Constitution, she had merely lost the use of her warp engines, but still had life support and battery power. Just after we lost contact with the Constitution, listening posts on the Klingon border observed the IKS Hor'Cha heading toward Archanis IV."

Commodore Wesley interrupted. "That's when I ordered the Farragut and the Valiant into the Archanis system."

"In response the Gr'oth and Klothos took positions just outside the Archanis system. The rest of the Klingon fleet has been redeployed to close gaps created by the Hor'Cha, Gr'oth and Klothos."

"This would all seem to be logical," Gaavrin said. They attack. We move. They counter move."

"Except for one thing, Commodore," said Kirk. "If the Klingons have a weapon that can immobilize one of the Federation's most powerful ships in a single strike, why do they need to redeploy ships in response to us?"

"I assume someone is asking the Klingons through diplomatic channels?" asked Spock.

"Yes," said Gaavrin. "No answer yet. Glacial speed as always."

"In the meantime," said Wesley. "We have to defend the border. I'm taking the Lexington along with Sanexa and the Potemkin into the Archanis system. Kirk, I want the Enterprise to follow as soon as you're free of this conspiracy nonsense.


	6. Kirk's Quarters

The comm whistled. Kirk snapped the switch and Uhura's head appeared.

"Captain, we've completed the latest round of drills. Would you like to repeat?"

"No. Have the computer generate a random crisis scenario, maximum difficulty."

"Aye, sir."

When looked up from his soup he found Kirk smirking.

"Something amuses you."

"It's taken me four and a half years, but I've finally convinced you to not eat alone."

"If there's any logic to mixing sustenance with socializing, it so far eludes me."

"And yet... here you are."

"There is however logic in helping a friend maintain his mental health, particularly when that friend has the most taxing job in the galaxy."

"You're here because it pleases you to keep me happy."

"Indeed."

There, thought Kirk, was something else that had changed in the last four years. There was a time when, even if no one else had been present, the mere insinuation that the Vulcan had acted emotionally would have made him defensive, visibly stiff even. The man's confidence, not to mention his trust in Kirk had grown so much, the two could discuss Spock's emotions as easily as they would pebbles by the side of a road.

"But there's something else."

"Yes."

"Something you are not anxious to discuss."

"Indeed."

Kirk chewed and swallowed another bite of his chicken sandwich before responding.

"You wish to tell me something, something you're not anxious to discuss."

"I have been reflecting on the recent events on Tanis I.

"I've put you in for a commendation."

"For which I am grateful. My actions were only possible because of my natural immunity to the limbic virus that affected the emotional stability of the Enterprise crew."

"You feel you don't deserve the commendation."

"It is more than that. The incident forced me to admit that being among emotional humans makes it easier to be Vulcan. It is, as a Human would say, a crutch. But my dependence is not my greatest concern. I've realized, no admitted to myself that I take pride in my difference with Humans."

"Spock, everyone takes a little pride in their heritage. As long as you don't hate others..."

"No, Jim. Even your primitive ancestors regarded pride, an emotion, as a deadly sin. My psychological dependence, my pride, are the problem. They are not Vulcan. They are not what I wish to be.

Kirk's eyes dropped. His heart sunk.

"You're leaving Starfleet."

"That is my intention, yes."

"To do what?"

"There are disciplines on Vulcan designed to purges vestigial emotion. The Paraknahr. The Kolinahr. Others."

"When?"

"You will need some time to replace me as first officer. I am content to leave that to you."

"Spock, no one will ever be able to replace you as first officer or as my friend."


	7. Deep Space K-5, Security Office

Kirk looked up in surprise when Scotty Rand the the station's head of operations walked into the security office. Kirk had been discussing the stolen vaccines with the station's head of security and his own security chief. The room was not really set up for a meeting. The three clustered around a small console, two chairs pulled in from an adjacent room. Kirk and company looked up when Scotty and the ops head halted next to them.

The station chief's, his jaw tightening, looked up at Scotty. "Mr. Scott, how is the search of level S proceeding?"

"Proceeding apace, Mr. Freisen." Kirk suppressed a smirk. From the beginning the station security chief had bristled at the intrusion of Starfleet personnel in at what he regarded as his operation. Kirk couldn't understand why. He had loaned the chief hundreds in footpower, and had placed no demands on him in return.

"I thought I'd use my lunch break to check on something. I found something you need to see."

"With respect, Mr. Scott, we really don't have time for the interruption."

"With respect, Chief, my officer wouldn't be here without good reason." The security chief flushed. "You may proceed, Mr. Scott."

Scotty squeezed between two of the clustered chairs and called up a video file on the console. "I wondered how could anyone steal half a ton of hypodermic vials without being caught on the station's security cameras. I looked at the footage again and found something."

Scotty pressed play. On the screen: an image of a station hallway, the one outside the storage area where the vaccines had been kept. The storage bay door opened. A man in a station operations uniform, holding a gravlift controller stepped into the hallway and walked toward the camera. He was followed by three gravlift pallets, each bearing a small industrial replicator.

Freisen shook his head. "I've seen this, Mr. Scott. This is the first thing I checked."

Scotty looked smug instead of annoyed. "Laddy, did ya think to watch it with yer operations chief lookin' over yer shoulder?"

"what?"

The operations chief spoke. "Those are class three industrial replicators. No class threes have been delivered to or stored on the station. They're fakes."


	8. Archanis

The strange ships kept coming. The one with the odd struts was followed by others that looked like predatory avians followed by more with odd struts. He severed their warp engines as easily as he had the first odd ship. There were five ships now and he had incapacitated all of them.

His communication dampers were back up. that had been a simple repair, a mere bypass to a backup power chanel. The odd ships had gotten around them. That was why power sinks were his primary offensive and defensive capability. The ships flashed lasers at each other, messages faster than an organic eye could see. Light-encoded data required physical barriers to block.

A few drones still worked. Most of them didn't respond. 115 and 237 had and making more drones was their first order of business. Sensors would be next. There had been a brief interlude of indecision-. 00712 seconds. Sensors before dampening fields. He had to know what he was facing before he could decide how to face it. The Caregivers could handle the intruders, but he first needed to tell them who was intruding.

Who was intruding? Opticals were all he had. There were two objects. He could see them moving as faint dots on his telescope screen. Until his sensors were back up, he couldn't resolve what they were. More ships with odd struts or more predatory avians? Perhaps the objects were the Caretakers, arrived at last. They would help. Yes. The Caretakers would bring repair drones. They would tell him how he should act in the war.

Here was something odd. The two new ships, the ones he couldn't identify. They didn't act like the others. They didn't blunder into the blackout zone he had created. They halted just outside. They waited. Were they observing?

He needed the long-range sensors back up. He needed them up now.


End file.
